Following on in my series of words to be careful about using I am now looking at another 3 letter word… ‘but’. If you are not careful you can contradict yourself by using the ‘but’word. Let me give you an example…

“Yes Mr customer I agree with what you have told me, but in addition…”

There we go, an innocent looking sentence with the ‘but’ word halfway along it. The first part of the sentence is agreement and then enter the ‘but’ which is the contradiction. I agree with you, but… The ‘but’ has just negated the agreement. By using the ‘but’ word what you are in fact saying is I don’t agree with you because I have a better point of view. This is what the other person will pick up either consciously or subconsciously… the agreement could be considerded to be insincere.

Now, if you want to be sincere about the agreement and want to add to it, then avoid using the ‘but’ word and instead use the all powerful ‘and’ word.

“Yes Mr customer I agree with what you have told me, and in addition…”

If you use ‘But‘ you could be contridicting what the customer is saying, whereas if you use ‘And‘ you could be adding to what the customer is saying… I’ll leave it to you to decide which is the better option!

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